Communication

Project "PGW" supports 30 municipalities in monitoring and alleviating pollution of water resources

Communities in Jordan, Palestine, Israel and Spain face daily critical issues regarding the use water resources. The weakness of sewage networks, and/or the lack of them, leads to huge discharges of wastewater from municipal, agricultural and industrial water sources, posing serious threats to the quality groundwater and human health.

To address these challenges, the project PWG ("Promoting Sustainable Groundwater Resources in the Mediterranean Basin") has been implemented over the last three years, with a series of actions aiming to improve the technical and administrative skills of staff from 30 municipalities in dealing with the actual and potential pollution of groundwater. These include:

• Training courses in Geographical Information System (GIS) as an instrument to support decision makers;
• Mapping and monitoring of existing risks to groundwater in 30 municipalities located in Jordan, Palestine, Israel and Spain;
• Preparation of hazard reduction and prevention plans to deal with any future threats to groundwater.

Thanks to the skills acquired under the PGW project, staff of involved municipalities underwent an important learning process, and will be more up to the task of sustainably managing water resources with positive impacts on over 1.4 million people in four countries.

The results of the PGW project were presented during an international conference on May 27th-28th at the Dead Sea (Jordan). The event brought together water experts, municipal stakeholders as well as representatives of national and international institutions. A large number of project’s outputs can be viewed here.

The project PGW has been implemented by "EcoPeace / Friends of the Earth Middle East"(FoEME), a regional organization that brings together Jordanian, Palestinian and Israeli environmentalists to promote sustainable development, in cooperation with the Malaga County Council (Spain) and the Water and Environment Development Organization - WEDO (Palestine).

Gidon Bromberg, Israeli Director of EcoPeace / FoEME, said "the PGW project verified once again that at municipal level, water and environment issues can not wait for the failure of national level politics".

Nader Khateeb, Palestinian Director of FoEME, concluded saying "together with the municipalities of n the Malaga’s area, three years of work have prepared detailed plans based on much new data collected by the project, all focused on protecting already scarce water resources from further pollution".